the real fake birds of abu dhabi
an interactive comic about the birdsong speakers hidden in nyu abu dhabi's palm trees. hand-coded, 2019.
from the comican interactive online comic about nyu abu dhabi's palm-tree birds conspiracy: there are speakers in the palms playing birdsong, everyone knows, nobody talks about it. the comic does.
interactive designer and front-end developer: story, illustrations, gif animation in photoshop, and the page itself in html, css and javascript, with buttons and a nav bar that move you through it.
communications lab, 2019. the first thing i hand-coded that people actually read, and the reason this site is hand-coded too. how many read it, what they said.
a campus mystery told as a comic you click through: what are the speakers in the palm trees for, who put them there, and why does everyone pretend the birds are real?
two sentences on the story beat and the tone: deadpan, conspiratorial, sweet?
- buttons and a nav bar to progress: the reader sets the pace, like turning pages
- gifs for character moments, stills for everything else, so motion means something
- one more decision
- script + thumbnailshow you planned the beats
- illustrationcharacters drawn, key moments animated into gifs in photoshop.
- the pagehand-written html and css for the layout; javascript for the buttons, the nav bar and the progression.
- publishinghosted on github pages, still live six years later.
one paragraph: what it taught you about code as a storytelling medium.